Thus they exchanged their glory
For the image of an ox that eats grass.
In the midst of God's amazing deliverance from Egypt and His powerful hand to provide, the nation of Israel rejected God and made a molten image of a calf to worship. Aaron would later tell Moses (who was on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments at the time) that the people simply tossed their gold earrings into the fire and a golden calf came out. They reduced the thing they worship to trinkets and bling. The odd aspect of this, is that since man was made in the image of God their making of a molten calf was, in actuality, a condemnation of them, as well as God. That is why they passage states that they exchanged "their" glory. They exchanged God's Glory for a golden calf, but in this passage God is mocking them because they also exchanged their glory since they were made in the image and glory of God. We laugh at them that they would bow down to an image of a calf and worship it as though it were important to them. Yet, we worship chrome, fiberglass, pretty paint, brick and mortar, and on and on it goes. It is so, so easy to worship the created thing rather than the creator. We love to worship what we can see. And, like the women at the well in John 4 we forget that those who worship must worship in Spirit and Truth. It is not where we worship but what our heart is like when we worship. We all tend to "exchange" the glory of God for useless and temporary objects. What do we worship? The creation or the Creator?
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